In the News (Thu 22 Feb 18)

The UEFAEuropeanChampionship is the main football competition of the men's national football teams governed by the UEFA.

There is a UEFA Women's Championship inaugurated in 1984 and from 1997 held every four years, as well as a Men's Under-21 equivalent of the UEFAEuropeanChampionship tournament, taking place every two years.

For the 2008 EuropeanFootballChampionship, the group qualifying phase consists of seven groups, one of eight teams, and the remainder of seven teams each.

These early matches were a football free-for-all with perhaps hundreds taking part, the objective being to carry a ball to one end or other of the town or village but because of the lack of rules and resulting "lawlessness" (nothing new there, then!) football was sometimes banned by royal decree.

The special year of 1996 is highlighted amis the familiar pattern of the ball and there are sixteen small rings to symbolise each of the teams who will compete in the finals, held appropriately in the country that is home to football.

The tenth Championships began in 18994 and the preliminary matches undoubtedly witnessed all the tension and drama of the previous nine tournaments.

Stitching footballs is largely a home-based industry in which the manufacturing/exporting companies produce the 'panels' of the balls in their factories and hire contractors who act as middlemen between them and the home-based workers who stitch the balls.

On the issue of the actual wages paid to football stitchers there is a wide gap between, on the one hand the statements of the Sports Goods Foundation of India (SGFI) and individual exporters and, on the other hand, the results of the study by the NLI and more recent observations.

The Dutch football association (KNVB) for example wrote in a letter to the Dutch Federation of Trade Unions (FNV) that it is 'absolutely impermissible to make use of child labour' if companies use the logo of FIFA, UEFA (EuropeanFootball Association) or a related event.

www.indianet.nl /vbindia.html (13658 words)

view from the terraces, The Mental Health Nursing - FindArticles(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)

Football supporters, by and large, continue to receive a very negative presentation from the media and much of the research done into football and football fans has focused on negative aspects of supporters' behaviour.

Argyle (1996) claimed that attending a sports event is closely linked to identification and inclusion within a group and that identification with both the players as people and the club as an entity appear important.

They suggest that the defining characteristic that separates fans from mere spectators is the formation of alliances whereby fans `perceive themselves as members of a tacitly existing group to which the objects of their fandom belong' (p 604).

With the Euro Championships set to dominate the TV schedules for the month of June 2004, Carlton Books present all the facts and figures relevant to everything that is happening in football in Portugal this summer as Europe?s fop football nations battle for the coveted trophy.

The indispensible guide to this summer's EuropeanFootballChampionships, to be held in Holland and Belgium, brought to you by the editorial team of the Sun -- the nation's number one selling daily newspaper.

With the Euro Championships upon us, renowned UK football magazine, ?Match?, presents all the facts and figures required for the armchair football fan as he settles down for a few weeks in June 2004 in the forlorn hope that England can bring the trophy home.

After a month of fantastic football, Germany clinched their third EuropeanChampionship crown when substitute Oliver Bierhoff scored the first ever "golden goal" in the competition's history.

For England the competition re-established their position on the footballing map after their failure to qualify for the World Cup in the USA in 1994.

Few chances were created and in the end the match was decided on a penalty shoot-out in which Clarence Seedorf's penalty smacked against the crossbar to give the French their first EuropeanChampionship semi-final appearance in 12 years.

The groundwork for a European national-team competition began in 1956, two years later the first European Nations' Cup, now known as the UEFAEuropeanChampionship, was under way.

Given the effort that Henri Delaunay of the French Football Federation had put into UEFA's birth and Europeanfootball, it was appropriate that the final phase of the first European Nations' Cup in 1960 should be held in France.

The European Nations' Cup became the UEFAEuropeanFootballChampionship for 1968.

www.uefa.com /Competitions/euro/History (620 words)

Important sporting events can trigger heart attacks in men(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)

Witte and colleagues compared the number of deaths on 22 June1996 (the day the Dutch football team was knocked out of the Europeanfootballchampionship) with the number of deaths five days before and after the match and in the same period in 1995 and 1997.

Factors such as increased mental and emotional stress, high alcohol intake, overeating and excessive smoking are thought to trigger cardiovascular deaths, explain the authors.

A critical football match - which combines several of these factors at one point in time - may provoke a sufficient level of stress to trigger acute heart attack or stroke, they say.

European Championship, Football(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)

The 1964 championships were held in Spain, and the Spanish national side succeeded in collecting its only major trophy to date before a 120,000-strong Madrid crowd.

Four years later the qualifying tournament was expanded to eight groups, accommodating 31 entries, and thereafter the competition was known as the EuropeanChampionship.

The expansion to accommodate 16 finalists in 1996, when England was the host nation, reflected not just the emergence of countries from Eastern Europe but also the strength and increasing popularity of Delaunay's dream.

Manchester Institute for Popular Culture, a research unit at the Manchester Metropolitan University, held a major international football conference to coincide with the 1996EuropeanFootballChampionship.

Whilst violence and hooliganism may still be of concern, the impact of the law with football now also raises concerns about the civil liberties of fans.

The intersection of football with drugs and popular music - for some a feature of the English experience in recent years - will be examined, as will the changing make-up of football support.

www.mipc.mmu.ac.uk /events/fanatics.htm (319 words)

Patrik Berger(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)

After impressive displays for the Czech Republic side in the 1996EuropeanFootballChampionship he was signed by Liverpool for £3.25 million.

Berger was impressive when he played for Liverpool, but over the next few years struggled with injuries, meaning he was in and out of the side.

He kept his place when fit in both his club and national side, but only made one appearance in the 2000 EuropeanFootballChampionship, having been suspended after being sent off in a qualifier against the Faroe Islands.

The four semi-finalists, Brazil, Spain, Russia and Ukraine had teams composed entirely of players who would perhaps not all be considered professionals in their home leagues, but who were certainly very close to this status in terms of training and competitive match intensity.

While Brazil may be feeling their challengers breathing down their necks, the European top level has become wider.

Ball control skills for indoor football have clearly become more specialised compared to the outdoor game.

The idea of overlapping security guarantees which emerged independently in several East European states, including Bulgaria, is coming to be viewed as one of the possible ways for guaranteeing European and later on global security.

Penev was more moderate in his prognostications and unlike the footballers spoke of an 80% chance for qualifying for the European finals.

The two goals scored by EuropeanFootballer of the Year Hristo Stoichkov are described here as brilliant.

After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the seventeenth century, the eastern half of the continent was claimed by the British in 1770 and officially settled as the penal colony of New South Wales on 26 January 1788.

As the population grew and new areas were explored, another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the nineteenth century.

Indigenous Australians are the first inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands, continuing their presence during European settlement.

Deaths from heart attacks or strokes in men, but not women, rose 50 per cent on one day of the EuropeanChampionship, brought on by stress, smoking and too much to eat and drink.

Prof Diederick Grobbee and his team at the University Medical Centre, Utrecht, Holland, looked at deaths on the day in June 1996 when the Dutch team was beaten in a penalty shoot-out by the French and went out of the championship.

Cardiovascular mortality in Dutch men during 1996Europeanfootballchampionship: longitudinal population study [22 Dec '00] British Medical Journal

The 2004 UEFAEuropeanFootballChampionship, commonly called EURO 2004, was held in Portugal between 12 June and 4 July 2004.

The UEFAEuropeanChampionship is a quadrennial football competition between national teams organised by UEFA, the sports governing body in Europe.

Such was the enthusiasm that overtook the Greek fans, that the ship became the symbol of the Greek victory, as Greeks where chanting for the 'Pirate Ship', as the Greek National Team was instantly named, into the early morning hours.